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I am sure most Canadians who are reading this blog recognize the logo above. I have taken the actual brand name out but I am aware that most of you will recognize the brand that made these commercials.

The brand name, however, is the only thing I have taken out of this screen shot. As I discussed in my previous post on removing barriers to engagement I have to wonder how it hasn’t occurred to this brand to include some links or information to their social media presences or even their website. Nothing, nada, not a word written. The campaign is called “Made to SHARE” for crying out loud! How has no one suggested to this brand that they actually make things sharable!

Before I go on let me make clear that, yes, I understand the campaign’s point is to encourage people to share the product amongst their friends but the word share has taken on a whole new meaning. As well, the actual ad that prompted this post was based around the idea of a picture of a guy being shared around by his family and friends on different mediums (phones, tablets, and computers) so it is obviously being done via some sort of online sharing even if it is only being done via email (unlikely as that is in this day and age).

This kind of makes me want to bang my head on the wall over and over and I am not an advertising professional. Maybe there is something here I am missing something that is obvious to anyone actually in the business but to me it seems like a massive miss. Not only isn’t any information listed on the advertising spot as shown above, they don’t have a YouTube channel where they can put up for ready access all their “Made to share” advertising spots so people can….wait for it….SHARE THEM!

Why? Please. Tell. Me. Why. It makes absolutely zero sense to me that they wouldn’t be attempting to convert this campaign by encouraging it go viral. Seems like a pretty obvious move to me but, again, maybe I am missing something.

As the title of this post implies today we are going to talk about brands and how they expect the consumer/customer to interact with them. I have been seeing quite a few ads and commercials recently where the advertiser wants to show their 21st Century savvy and how they are available on different social media platforms but they do it like you see in the picture above. The announce to the world (or whoever is seeing the ad) that, yes, they are present on those platforms but they seem to think that we all like to play a game of Where’s Waldo with them.

Waldo via Waldo Wiki

I mean, I loved sitting on trips with my family when I was a kid and opening one of the Where’s Waldo books but that was recreational and something to do when we were sitting in an airport/on a plane/in a car and had nothing better to do. The point of advertising and being present on the various social media platforms is so that the consumer and potential customers can engage with the brand/advertiser. Don’t make it difficult for us!

This shouldn’t be news to anyone either. Heck, I recently was in the the new shop on Queen St West called Community 54 where they have old arcade video games from way back in the day. One of those games, Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey, was from late enough (1996) that they thought it relevant to mention that the game had a site on this newfangled thing called the Internet. But they didn’t just announce this fact, they didn’t put “WE ARE ON THE INTERNET” and expect people to go out and find them. If you look in the picture below you can see exactly what they wrote because I snapped a picture of it.

They told people to “Check out these WEB sites” and then listed them. Done. Consumer can easily interact with those two websites assuming they had computers and access to the Internet. But at leas they didn’t lose them in the potentially interested person having to do any work to engage with the brand.

Some more examples below:

And

To be fair, the second one of the above pictures, from Union Station in Toronto, they did point to the account @unionstationTO on Twitter for us to engage with but they didn’t bother for some reason with Facebook to do the same. My guess as to why this is is because they didn’t bother to get a custom URL for their page before printing up this signage (they have’t, it seems, bothered to register a custom URL even to this day). This is just laziness plain and simple (in my opinion).

In conclusion, this is a message to all Brands, Advertisers, and Marketers:Removebarriers to engagement don’t erect them.

Have you seen similar displays as I pictured above? Have you ever gone out and actually engaged with a brand afterward or did you just say screw it because it was too much work? Let me know in the comments below.

(And in case you are wondering, no I have never bothered looking into the above pictured brand’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. As well, here’s a link provided by the Way Back Internet Machine for Gretzky.com in 1998. I couldn’t get Midway.com because it just redirects to Warner Bros which bought their assets in 2009 when Midway went bankrupt.)

On my way to the York University Alumni Mixer last week I had to go through TTC King Station. As I walked through the station I noticed that it had all been plastered with advertising for the new “Johnnie Walker Double Black” blended scotch whisky. In case you’re wondering the whisky has been described “a pumped-up Black Label” so in the price/age list it probably comes between Black Label and Green Label. (The list from lowest price/youngest to highest/oldest is Red, Black, Green, Gold, and Blue.)

When I got to the turnstiles on my way out I noticed the contradictory message the ad related – to “Keep Walking” – whereas the TTC’s signage said that that particular turnstile was “No Entry. It giving me that chuckle was something I thought I’d share.

Have you ever seen something like this? Where an ad’s placement results in an amusing message due to its surroundings? Funnier? Let me know below in the comments!

Yesterday and last night I was at AndroidTO 2011 thanks to my buddy Justin Baisden (@The_JMoney on the Twitters) and I had a fantastically amazing time – and learning experience – all day during #AndroidTO itself and the #Harthfest after-party afterward. Ok, you got me, there wasn’t any learning going on during Hartfest. Come to think of it, Harthfest was more about killing brain cells with alcohol, but I digress.

While I can write a lot about many different subjects from AndroidTO – which was an extremely well put together production by the organizers and volunteers – what really struck me yesterday is the way one of the event sponsors chose to use the AndroidTO vehicle to market themselves and their products.

I am somewhat uncertain about the etiquette of even writing this and naming names so if you think I should take down the specific references, let me know.

Above you can see the picture of two of the items from the AndroidTO event swag bag – one very appropriately themed awesome t-shirt…but what is up with that red card? Is it for Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 Mango? It is? What the…?

For those of you who don’t know, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform IS NOT a version of Android. I get it that the vast majority of people who attended AndroidTO were in some way or another involved in making a multitude of apps on a multitude of platforms a reality. I understand that Microsoft is trying to push for people to develop for their mobile platform. I am well aware that a lot of app developers/development companies don’t just do one platform but do apps on many different platforms but was the AndroidTO swag bag the place to push a different mobile platform? To me it seems like it really isn’t the place.

Some who were there yesterday may argue that the panels and speakers yesterday didn’t only discuss the apps they had and development experiences they had with the Android platform but talked about a myriad of other platforms as well. While this is true, it doesn’t change the fact that the panel members discussing different mobile platforms in terms of their centralized app downloading spots or marketing the app on the internet or through traditional media or beta testing an app holds true pretty much across mobile platforms and is, therefore and in my mind, completely valid to bring up. But out and out advertising a contest for developers to develop for a different platform through the swag bag of an event targeting and geared towards another platform just seems crass to me.

It is that time of year again that every year I and millions of others like me are made to feel left out while others celebrate. You’d think that as a Jew and missing out on all the major Christian holidays most everyone celebrates I would be used to this sort of thing but this issue is entirely different. What is happening now that makes me feel left out and reminds me of something I don’t need reminding of? Father’s Day.

I don’t make a secret of the fact that my dad passed away almost a decade ago but at the same time I don’t shout it from the rooftops. I get on with my life every day and try and live for the most part unaffected by this loss…and you can insert the rest of what you expect me to say about it here because I can’t be bothered to write it.

What just annoyed me and spurned this post is receiving a marketing email reminding me that Father’s Day is coming up. It gave all those sappy lines encouraging me to buy their product only one thing…who the heck am I buying it for? Right, no one. Thanks for the reminder that my dad is dead, Company X.

Now I am not expecting the whole world to stop because I have experienced a loss that the majority of other people my age haven’t.

I don’t expect to not see ads for Father’s Day/see the day mentioned on TV, in magazines, on billboards, and in storefronts or to hear talk/ads for it on the radio. I am sure there will be a ton of posts all over the internet leading up to the big day and I wouldn’t expect anything less.

However, what I think we can all expect from marketers or advertisers who are sending out email blasts is at least the attempt to get us to fill out a poll with information about what is relevant to us when we sign up for these lists. I don’t need to receive an email at 1 AM to remind me that my dad is no longer amongst the living. Never mind the fact that these email blasts are more often glanced at and deleted so I have to wonder about the conversion rate from an email blast these days.

I am mildly surprised that we don’t have this option available to us more often than not. In this world which is growing more complex and bombarding us all with more and more stimuli on a constant basis I would think marketers and advertisers would be striving to make their messages more and more targeted and relevant to help cut through the noise. We are also living in a world where we are getting more and more Politically Correct (PC) every day. I would think that targeted marketing would be a very important part of targeted marketing. We should be trying to do our utmost NOT TO attempt to market Ash Wednesday to Jews, Hanukkah to Buddhists, Super Bowl Sunday to Buffalo Bills fans, Vesak to the Muslims, etc.

What I know right now is that this is one email list for which I will be hitting the unsubscribe button, post haste.

In the news recently has been talk of the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) contemplating the sale of station & subway line naming rights to advertisers (see Torontoist’s article here). After that, Torontoist also came out with a joking new subway map which used all sorts of corporate and company names as part of the subway station names (see it here and here). A lot of people, as you can tell by those articles have ridiculed the idea of marring the naming of Toronto’s ‘beloved’ (OK, fine, ‘much maligned’ is more accurate) TTC system with names of companies instead of the names of stations or lines. However, as I have previouslysaid they do need to do something to revamp the naming of stations and lines – I am not advocating for or against corporate sponsorship here – to make it easier to navigate in general.

TTC, City of Toronto, here is my idea – instead of selling the naming rights how about we start allowing advertisers to put signs in special places on subway platforms and near exits of stations letting people know what is outside and where…just like on the exits of highways! In case you don’t know what I mean I have included a picture I pulled from Google Maps Street View of Exit 320 of Highway 401 and posted it on the left. The sign tells me that at this stop there are places I can purchase food in this case the sign lists a Harvey’s, a Kelsey’s, a Starbucks, a Wendy’s and some place called Fifth Wheel Truck Stop if I turn left off the ramp and a Tim Hortons if I go right. Of course, what this sign doesn’t tell me (I assume because they aren’t paying for it) is that there is a McDonald’s closer to the highway (not by much but still) than the Harvey’s & Swiss Chalet and in the same plaza as those two there is also a Subway Restaurant. There are other versions of this sign which also tell me where they hotels/motels are at exits, where the gas stations are at exits and which exits have the interesting sights to see as well as where they are. These signs also exist (without the direction arrows) as you near the exit so you know to get over to the exit lane on the right and begin to salivate for the food, or check you gas gauge to see if you need to top up. Let’s tell advertisers that they we are putting something akin to those signs in the TTC stations on the platforms and near the exits. I don’t doubt retailers would pay a pretty penny for people to know there is one of their locations just outside the subway station.

I just saw an ad for this new Lysol Automatic Hand Soap Pump. The commercial said that a ton of germs are on the top of hand soap pumps and therefore we need to buy this Lysol product. The product has a motion sensor which dispenses the hand soap automatically so you don’t ever have to touch the germ riddled top of the dispenser.

While I applaud the idea that Lysol has to market a new product and create demand for it my main questions regarding this new product are:
(1) Why do I need this product? Aren’t I washing my hands right after I touch the top of the soap dispenser? I don’t know anyone who touches the soap dispenser after they wash their hands with the soap from the dispenser.
(2) Can’t I just spray the top of my regular soap dispensers with regular Lysol disinfectant or just wipe it with rubbing alcohol to kill all those germs that are supposedly there?

Like I said I applaud the effort Lysol and I wish you all the luck in the world convincing people to buy it. However, I still think this product is completely useless.